Various patent documents describe granular detergent compositions comprising particulate materials such as fabric softener clays and builder zeolites, together with various fabric treating agents such as long-chain organic amines and quaternary ammonium compounds. See, for example: German 29 64 114.3; EPO 80200570.2; 80200877.1; 80201015.7 and German 28 57 163.3; 24 39 541.3 and 23 34899.4. Many such products are prepared by mixing the clay with the crutcher mix and spray-drying, in well-known fashion.
In some instances, the formulator of such clay-containing detergents may wish to add clay to the product by a simple dry-mixing operation, whereby agglomerated clay is simply admixed with a spray-dried "base" detergent powder. Indeed, agglomerated clays are available from many commercial sources as generally spherical particles, usually approximately 0.2-6 mm in diameter. Such agglomerates may be dyed various colors to signal their presence in the detergent composition. However, on contact with water the clay agglomerates can impede release of the detergent granules from automatic washing machine detergent dispensers.
This dispensing problem has now been overcome, as will be seem from the following disclosure.